Dog watches dog 15.04.04

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Scottish Television reporter Nicola Kane is still smarting after a severe roughing-up in the Big Apple from fellow Scot Sir Sean Connery, who has always epitomised the James Bond cool.

Kane collared Connery going into the Dressed to Kilt fashion show – part of the annual Tartan Day celebrations in New York. As Kane asked him a number of simple questions on camera, Connery countered with answers like “You’ve got it in one. Give this woman £5,000” and “I think that is not a very smart question”. He later told her that taking part in the parade felt like “getting a sore throat from talking to people like you”.

Media-savvy Americans were astonished by Connery’s rudeness.

Diplomatically, the shaken-but-notstirred Kane said: “I just thought it strange that he couldn’t say two civil words in support of the event that he is so obviously committed to. If he didn’t want to speak, he could have moved on. Instead, he chose to stop and become antagonistic and offensive.”

90 up and country lover Eric is still going strong

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Northampton Chronicle & Echo countryside columnist Eric Roberts was 90 on 5 April. He celebrated by doing what he’s done five days a week for 51 years – filing his daily Country Diary column. In the same week he wrote his 15,000th column for the paper.

Not that he expected such a long run. As a Londoner who had moved north, Roberts was not confident of his expertise in countryside matters, “so I decided to write anonymously under the name Robinâ€¦ largely because it was the only bird I could recognise. I was so sure it wouldn’t catch on that I didn’t even bother buying a notebook.”

His paper reckons he must be the longest-serving provincial columnist in the UK â€¦ but Dog would be delighted to hear from anyone who knows of a better claim to the title.

Gaels show us how it should be done

Broadcaster Brian Morton, who quit his BBC Scotland arts programme because it pandered too much to a London agenda, has provocatively defended the power of the “Gaelic mafia” in guiding the corporation’s affairs north of the border.

With Ken McQuarrie’s appointment as controller of BBC Scotland and Maggie Cunningham heading BBC Radio Scotland, Morton explains that this has added to the angst of “Anglophone colleagues who have long been faintly paranoid about the Gaels”.

However, avers Morton: “Underneath the paranoia at BBC Scotland, there’s a guilty understanding that the Gaels run the place because they’re better at the job than anyone else.

They work harder, consider more fully the relationship between broadcaster and audience, and above all work from a vision of how radio and television can fulfil long-term cultural ambitions as well as short-term entertainment and ratings quotas.”

So now you know what makes these ubiquitous Gaels tick.

Brown: wanted £3,000 to attend

Brown misses the party

Loaded’s 10th birthday bash last week at Rouge, the suitably seedy nightspot on the Charing Cross Road, was the expected feast of major celebs. There was, well, Jordan and, erâ€¦ someone from the Big Brother before last.

Anyway, various former editors were there to help push the boat out, and of course the current incumbent, Martin Daubney.

But one was rather conspicuous by his absence – a certain James Brown, the founder of the title back in those heady days of 1994.

“Of course he was invited,” a Loaded insider said. “But he said he’d only come if we paid him an appearance fee of three grand.”

The grass really is greener at The Sun

COWA-SUN-GA, the gaily painted plastic cow that stands in the middle of The Sun’s editorial floor, now has its very own grass.

The newspaper’s gardening expert, Peter Seabrook, went into the Fortress Wapping office last week to distribute potted plants around the desks.

Then, as staff gawped in astonishment, he brought out a tray of luxuriantly growing grass and placed it in front of the cow, which is nicknamed Mona because that’s what most of the hacks are.

One gnarled surly old sub watched in growing disbelief before growling: “Cuds-wallop.

The blasted thing will be doing a whoopsie in the middle of the floor next.

“Fancy new carpet, red telephone kiosk, potted plants, grass and a bloody cow. It’s all a load of bullocks if you ask me.”

The Australian does its bit for diplomatic relations in the Middle East. Thanks to alert on-the-road spotter Christina Cran.